


hand extended waiting for a shake

by noahfronsenburg



Category: Fire Emblem: Shin Ankoku Ryuu to Hikari no Ken | Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, Fire Emblem: Shin Monshou no Nazo | Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem
Genre: Agender Character, Angry Kissing, F/F, Found Family, M/M, Post-Canon, Trans Female Character, michalis is a FUCKING DIPSHIT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2019-04-26 04:38:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14394468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noahfronsenburg/pseuds/noahfronsenburg
Summary: “Michalis grew a beard,” Catria said, lips pursed. “It looks bad.”Navarre had kind of liked it.





	hand extended waiting for a shake

**Author's Note:**

> Small brain: fe otp is the canon ending  
> medium brain: fe otp is any s-rank/paired ending  
> large brain: fe otp is any character supports, paired ending or no  
> exploding brain brain: fe otp is any two characters who interact at all  
> galaxy brain: fe otp is any two characters from the same game who never interact at all and have no relationship

The village was in the middle of nowhere in Aurelis and had an inn and a bandit problem and that was about all that was of note. That meant there was a bed and Navarre was able to earn enough money to sleep in it, which was all he cared about.

“Are you _sure_ you don’t want a bath? I’m _so_ gross!” Phina said, as they traipsed back to the inn. She slung one arm over his shoulders, and he didn’t throw her off, because she’d just put it back. Not because he liked it. “Can we split the earnings so I can get a bath?”

Navarre had already split their earnings. Phina dancing was what let him actually be such a good mercenary; she distracted his enemies and he cut them down. They made a good team. It was why he’d let her stick around for the last five years. He took her money pouch, which he carried, and dropped it into her outstretched hand.

Phina had the audacity to wink at him. “What, going to bathe out of the basin? Sure you don’t want to join me?” She wiggled her hips at him, just out of habit, and Navarre felt the edges of his lips turn up into something resembling a smile, just slightly, as he shoved her off. She waved goodbye and ran off to the bathhouse in town.

She looked like an airhead, but she could take care of herself. She was as deft a hand with a sword as Samuel was now. He didn’t worry about her overmuch as he returned to the inn. It was quiet inside, almost deserted, and Navarre nodded to the innkeeper’s rambling as he counted out the coin to pay for a room, didn’t pay any attention to it. One bed. Two meals. Watered beer was fine. The innkeeper passed him a key, said something about seating in the common room, and dinner would be served soon.

Navarre was halfway to his preferred area of any given indoors location—always in the corner, back to a wall, eyes on any doors or windows—when he realized there was someone seated at the table in the corner, and he froze, fingers already darting to the hilt of his sword before he caught himself. The stranger was in a heavy cloak, and they looked up to see him.

The breadth of only the corner table separated them. They stared at one another, and Navarre finally dropped his hand from his sword completely as the man raised his eyebrows in surprise at seeing him. It had been five years since the end of the War of Heroes, and in that time, Michalis of Macdeon hadn’t aged much. There was a bit of grey visible in his red hair, and he badly needed a shave, but that was more from traveling than it was from getting older. The beard hid the scar on his jaw and cheek from fighting Gharnef, but it made him look more gaunt. Tradeoffs.

Navarre hesitated, and then pulled out the chair next to him and sat down. “The hood is suspicious,” he said.

“How many people with red hair do you know?”

Navarre counted, listing off their former traveling companions on one hand as he thought. “At least eleven. Not counting you or your sisters.” Michalis hesitated. “Did you tie your wyvern up outside like a horse?” Navarre asked, and Michalis shrugged and reached up, took his cloak off, and folded it up, set it on his lap.

They sat in silence for some time until the innkeep came out with the beer, tried to engage them in conversation and got stony silence and haughty disdain for his efforts, and then wandered back off again, leaving them in silence.

“Is Phina still with you?” Michalis asked, after they’d drunk a bit, when the silence seemed to begin to wear thin for him, grate on his nerves. “And Samuel?”

“Phina’s at the bathhouse,” Navarre said, succinctly. “Samuel left.” He had his own career to pursue, even if it was one that was made up of imitating Navarre. Mostly imitating him badly; Samuel always had to chatter to fill the silence. He and Phina had gotten along very well, when they had all travelled together still.

“Have you two thought of settling down?” Michalis asked.

Navarre’s mouth pinched, and he stared at his mug of beer. It wasn’t even good beer; it was watery, which he preferred, but tasteless, sour, and gritty against the back of his teeth. “No,” he settled on, at last. “I’m not interested in Phina.”

“You’re not interested in _anybody_ ,” Michalis said.

“ _Sexually_ ,” Navarre corrected, not even bothering to hide the acid in his tone. “Phina is my partner. That is all.”

“Oh,” Michalis said it softly. Neither of them spoke for a while longer. It wasn’t like they had ever been friends, during the war. Navarre had been there the day Minerva had almost killed Michalis, and although he’d fought beside them at the end of the War of Heroes, he had held himself aloof from his fellows. He’d been too focused on his own ambition to interact with plebs. Navarre had only spoken to him a handful of times during the end of the War, and they had been acerbic conversations at best. It was fine to share a table with him, and Navarre had his own host of questions to ask, but he had learned over the years that letting his silence do the work got others to spill long before he cracked.

In the end, though, he didn’t have to let that happen, because Phina came back. “I’m here!” She sang, dropping into the third chair, her hair damp from washing. She opened her mouth in a big _o_ when she saw who was sitting next to Navarre. “Your _Majesty!_ ” She said, going gooey eyed at him. “I didn’t know you were in town!”

“Hello, Phina,” Michalis said. “No titles. I rescinded my right to the throne.”

“Right,” Phina said, rolling her eyes, speaking for Navarre, “And then you fought Minerva over it for two years until Maria threw you out of Macdeon. We heard the whole thing from Lena and Julian a couple of months ago. Ran off with your tail between your legs and vanished into the countryside. Finally get tired of being a depressed hermit with no friends?” She twirled the end of her ponytail around her finger, smirked at Michalis.

Navarre loved Phina so, so much.

Michalis was scowling at her. Michalis did _not_ love Phina.

“Something of that sort,” Michalis managed at last, clearing his throat. “I received a letter from Marth some two months ago, and I’ve been following his request since then.” Navarre raised his eyebrows, expectantly. “Nyna,” Michalis explained. “She left Archanea after Marth’s coronation as head of the League and vanished.”

“I mean, I could have told you _that_ was coming.” Phina rolled her eyes. “What’s the big deal? She doesn’t want to come back.”

“Marth asked me to find her and take her across the strait, to Valentia.” Michalis shrugged. “He said he had some idea she might be happier there than here. Initially I was going to do nothing of the sort, but I _am_ curious as to where she is.” They all knew why she left. It wasn’t hard to. She’d made herself plenty clear at the end of the War. “I’ve been following up on rumors. She was last seen crossing the border out of Archanea into Aurelis, so I’ve been trying to track her down since. She seems to be heading north.”

“We’re heading south,” Navarre said, closing that door before it ever opened.

“Aren’t you just a _little_ curious?” Phina asked, kicking his ankle under the table. Navarre picked at his food and shrugged.

“Sheena’s already hired us, and we have to work to eat.” Phina pursed her lips, but she couldn’t disagree. He had a point.

“I don’t need companions anyway,” Michalis sniffed disdainfully. “I thank you for the offer, but I can take care of myself perfectly fine.”

Phina and Navarre made eye contact, and she gave him a face that said _get a load of this guy over here, big idiot is going to get himself killed_. He replied with a face that said _it’s not my fucking problem and I don’t want you making it my problem_.

“Good luck!” Phina said. “If anybody can handle that kind of thing, it’s you!”

 

 

Three weeks later, in Gra, they heard secondhand from Catria and Palla, traveling through on their way back from visiting Est, about what had happened to Michalis. He’d apparently run across the Wolfguard and gotten into a badly-planned altercation and been sent fleeing with his tail between his legs, heavily injured. He’d shown up two days later in Macedon, practically on his deathbed (again) and had been recuperating in the castle.

“He grew a beard,” Catria said, lips pursed. “It looks bad.”

Navarre had kind of liked it.

They never heard what happened afterward, because they finished the job rounding up bandits and kicking them out of Gra, and then they got a job for Marth and Caeda and went to Altea, and then Ogma called in a favor and they went to Talys. And then it was winter so they went to hole up in Khadein for a while, because Navarre didn’t particularly enjoy being too cold to properly wield a sword, and Phina made a bucketload of gold dancing for sexually-frustrated trainee mages.

Navarre hardly noticed two years passing. Except they did. He turned thirty-five, and resolutely did not tell anybody, especially Phina, about it. She was already complaining enough about having turned twenty-five the year before, he didn’t need to give her more fodder for long diatribes about how old they were getting and how they should finally get married and settle down together. _He_ knew she was joking, but many of their friends thought she was serious.

They were in the western forests of Grust packing up their campsite one day late that summer when Phina looked up into the sky and gasped. “Nav!” She grabbed his shoulder, shook him. “Look!”

Following her outstretched hand, he squinted as he looked up into the sky; the sun was overhead in exactly the wrong spot, and he’d begun to have difficulty focusing with his left eye. Those things combined meant that it took him longer than he would have liked to pinpoint what she saw. Not too far away was a rider on a wyvern, racing overhead, belabored by a sea of black arrows, shadows against the sky. He looked closer, squinting harder, as he tried to make out details. He knew that wyvern. It was—

“Is that _Michalis_?” Phina gasped, and Navarre stopped, grabbed his sword from where it was resting beside the fire pit, and buckled it to his belt. He took off running, not wasting time trying to get on horseback. He wouldn't be able to fight like that anyway.

“Navarre, our stuff!”

“We’ll come back for it!” He shouted back to her. “He’s going to get knocked out of the sky!”

“ _Ugh!_ ” Phina yelled after him, but after a moment he heard her running, keeping pace just behind him. They cut through the forests back to the road, heading toward Michalis. He was losing height and speed as he went, and when they were probably half a mile out, his wyvern gave a great shriek in the air above, twisted, and plummeted.

“Oh, that’s really bad,” Phina said, and they kept running. By the time they reached Michalis, he had stumbled out of the saddle and was standing between his wyvern and a small group of Grustian soldiers. He was leaning heavily on one leg, his other had three arrows embedded in it, and he was holding a wicked-looking axe in his white-knuckled grip, his teeth bared.

His wyvern was alive, but had finally been taken down by an arrow that had punctured straight through its wing, right up beside its shoulder joint.

Navarre didn’t waste time on pleasantries. He ran right past Michalis, unsheathed his sword, and struck a knight head-on. His first cut went clean through the man’s gut, and he fell spurting blood. With Phina rallying him, distracting the knights, he was able to take down another one, and started to clear a space for Michalis to be able to fight without moving.

It was over fast, as such things always were. In a matter of minutes they were standing panting in a small field of blood as the survivors ran away at full tilt, calling for reinforcements. Their stay was officially over, it seemed. Navarre counted the bodies—ten dead, total—and spun his sword, shaking blood off of the blade, before he caught up the hem of his cheongsam, deftly wiped it clean, and sheathed it. He gave a cursory search of the bodies, took what money they had, and stole a good-quality sword.

Money was money and swords never lasted forever. He took them both.

Without anybody else to fight, Michalis had fallen back against the side of his wyvern, pale-faced and panting. His injured leg had evidently finally given out, and Navarre approached as Phina crouched next to him. He was drinking her vulnerary, which she had pressed with distracted hands into his grip.

Navarre glanced at his leg, saw that there were two arrows that had been embedded all the way through his knee, and blanched. Phina was looking worriedly at him. “We’d better get you somewhere we can treat those,” she said, as Michalis fought to regain his breath. “Do you think your wyvern can fly?”

“Athena can walk,” Michalis replied, handing her back the rest of her vulnerary after he’d taken a gulp. It had restored his color a bit, but his face was still pinched with pain. He glanced down at his leg. “Can’t say the same for me.”

“I can carry you.” Navarre crossed his arms. “At least back to our campsite.” Michalis looked like he was going to argue, but he eventually nodded, mutely. Apparently making Navarre take his weight was better than injuring his wyvern any further. Sheathing his axe into his wyvern’s saddle, Phina and Navarre helped Michalis stand, and Navarre took one of his arms over his shoulders, letting his injured leg rest between them, supporting his weight where Michalis could not.

Athena walked along beside them, nearly as slowly as Michalis. Phina ran on back ahead to the campsite, huffing and complaining the whole way about what kind of damage exercise this early in the morning would do to her figure, while Navarre focused on making Michalis put one foot in front of the other.

“What happened?” He asked, when Michalis had to stop, panting. He was losing his color rapidly again, and his jaw was visibly clenched, his teeth grit. “Soldiers of Grust attacking a Macedonian flyer isn’t business as usual.”

“Long story,” Michalis managed, pausing to breathe to get it out. “Explain later.”

“Illegal?”

Michalis laughed, albeit strained. “Highly.”

Navarre shrugged slightly, raising his eyebrows. “Sounds like fun,” he said at last, thoughtful. If it was serious enough business to get the Royals in on it, he could very well foresee this piquing his interest. “Urgent?”

“Extremely.”

They’d better get him to a healer, then.

At the campsite, Phina was waiting for them, and Navarre helped Michalis sit down on a rock as Phina went to Athena, snapping the arrows from her wings and stuffing the punctures with cotton and plastering them down. Getting Michalis’ breeches off was difficult, and in the end Navarre had to pull his boot off and then snap the arrow hafts free, drag his breeches down to the bolts, and pull them free and bandage them as fast as possible, sticky herbs and honey to keep the wound from putrefying.

To his credit, Michalis never screamed. He just sat there, his jaw grit and his lips a bloodless line, his entire body shaking with adrenaline. When Navarre finished, Michalis sagged, panting for breath, curled over his injured leg and trembling like a leaf in the wind.

He finished Phina’s vulnerary.

“If Athena can fly, we can dump him on the horse, right?” Phina asked, as they packed up the campsite, tying bundles tight and collapsing tents to load their pack horse.

“Not with the baggage,” Navarre replied, tightening saddles and tying his hair out of his face. “He’ll ride with me. How far is Marisha?”

He knew she and Phina snuck around any time they were close enough. She shrugged, like she hadn’t been hanging out with her girlfriend plenty lately. “We’ll be there by nightfall, if we hurry.”

“I need to be in Altea,” Michalis said, his deep voice ragged and tight with pain. “By the day after tomorrow.”

Navarre and Phina both turned to stare at him. Michalis stared back at them, his face pale with blood loss and his eyes pressed into bruised sockets. “You can’t _stand_ ,” Navarre said. As if to prove him wrong, Michalis wrestled to his feet, and Navarre ignored him as he tried to take a step, lost his balance, and fell sideways. He barely caught himself on the rock he’d been sitting on, and sagged to the ground, wheezing in agony, bent double.

“That’s not happening,” Navarre said, shortly. “Let’s get you healed, and you explain what you need done, and I’ll do it.” Michalis sobbed, nodding his thanks. It took the both of them to get him back upright, and getting him onto Navarre’s horseback was so much he fainted.

“That’s some bad blood loss,” Phina said as they started moving, Athena gliding low overhead, listing toward her uninjured wing. Navarre didn’t say much, just adjusted where Michalis was leaning, slumped over, barely conscious with pain. Navarre grit his jaw.

 

 

When they reached Marisha’s cottage, she was standing outside beating dry some laundry, and she looked up at the sound of hoofbeats. It was past sunset now, twilight fading into night, and she stared at them. “Hi!” Phina waved to her girlfriend. “I’m not here to kiss you, we found this idiot!”

“I can hear you,” Michalis managed, and Marisha dropped the ladle she’d been using to beat out her laundry, hiked her skirts up, and came jogging over. “It’s not infected, just lost blood.” Marisha stuck her hands out, and it still took both Navarre and her working together to get Michalis out of the saddle. He was pale and faint, wobbling on his unhurt knee as he was forced to stand. With Phina’s help, they got him into Marisha’s cottage, and he collapsed onto her day-bed for patients, out of breath as she stripped his breeches off and left him in only his smallclothes.

“What do I have to do?” Navarre asked, standing over him as Marisha twisted the bandages free. It took Michalis a moment to find the words, wetting his lips and hissing between his teeth as she pressed down over one of the puncture wounds.

“On Athena’s saddle,” Michalis explained. “Wrapped in the sheet. Unwrap it if you want, I care not. Ride south to Altea, to a small town by the name of Hogshead. You’ll know who you’re meant to meet. _Please_.” Michalis grabbed his hand as he spoke, and Navarre stared down at where Michalis, white-knuckled, was holding to his wrist.

He patted the other man’s hand, because he couldn’t think of what else to do. Navarre said, “You got it.”

 

 

Navarre didn’t look at the sheet-wrapped package until his second night on the road, because he was almost certain once he knew what it was, and if he was close enough to go strangle Michalis, he _would_. So he stopped on the side of the road after dusk, lit a torch, and opened the damn thing.

And then Navarre stared at it. For. A while. And then he pinched the bridge of his nose, and sighed. And then he stared at it more.

He was going to _kill_ Michalis.

 

 

It ended up taking him almost four days to get to the village in Altea Michalis had told him to go to, and when he arrived, Navarre didn’t bother hunting around. He just went to the Inn, exhausted and badly needing food and rest. He was going to eviscerate Michalis whenever he made it back to Marisha’s; this wasn’t just a fool’s errand, it was a suicide mission. And now he’d been dragged in on it.

Turned out he’d made the right decision, because he walked into the Inn and Samuel yelped. They stared at each other, and Samuel immediately dropped the act. “Take that shit off,” Navarre growled, gesturing to his hair.

“I dyed it, it’s not a wig!”

Navarre hated this. He went to the innkeep and paid for a bed, and then walked back over to Samuel, who was withering under a blistering tirade from the woman beside him. “My apologies for the imposter,” Navarre said to the woman, who looked up at him, her lips pursed. He searched her face, trying to remember where he’d seen her before—it connected when he finally noticed her hair.

The last time Navarre had seen Empress Nyna, she had been composed, if bereft, in grief. She looked older now—they all did, after more than seven years—but her age was not just a physical change. It was inside her, too. Her long blonde hair was chopped short to her shoulders, a utilitarian cut, and free of its former elaborate trappings. She was dressed in serviceable clothes that barely skirted the edge of fine, just enough to make her not stand out in any way at all. She wasn’t too rich, nor too poor. She’d left off all but some lipstick, and she was wearing proper riding gear.

Nyna was no Bishop any more, that was for sure.

“I thought I’d been able to tell the difference, but either I’m growing foolish or Samuel’s disguises are better.”

“The latter,” Navarre sat down at the free stool by their table. “He traveled with Phina and I and practiced.” Samuel rubbed the back of his neck, sheepishly. “He’s a fine enough swordsman to operate on his own.” Nyna was still scowling at Samuel, but Navarre saw no need to further intrude on that. He’d done his one bit of sticking up for his idiot student. “What name are you going by?”

“Nina,” she replied automatically. “Are you here by accident, or...”

“Michalis sent me.” Nyna—Nina, now—nodded in understanding. “He got shot out of the sky escaping Grust.”

“Is he—?” Her face shuttered suddenly, in fear. “Surely, he’s not—“

Navarre sighed. “He’s alive. He’s an _idiot_ , and so are you.” Nina smiled, and broke eye contact in embarrassment. She’d been no better than a fool to think Michalis could get away with what he’d stolen from Grust that easily, and the fact that Michalis had gone _along_ with her harebrained plan was just proof that he was the dumber to her dumb. “Why did you think that would work?”

“He was King of Macedon; they would trust him enough to let him into the castle.” Nina paused, and added, “Once. I suppose that good will is used up.” Navarre raised his eyebrows at her, as if to say _no fucking shit,_ but didn’t otherwise call her out. “But it did work, didn’t it?” Navarre nodded.

The look on Nina’s face was like someone had just cut her chest open and pulled her heart out. She didn’t go into hysterics, for which Navarre was silently thankful, but she did turn her face away, press both her hands over her mouth, squeeze her eyes shut and take a few shaking breaths. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what she was going through. Some shitty way to mourn a guy, for sure.

“Can you even use it?” he asked, leaning forward over the table. Samuel was looking back and forth between the two of them, bewildered, left out of a whole section of the conversation. “Because if you can’t, and Michalis almost _died_ just so you could mourn over it rather than his grave—“ Navarre didn’t feel much for most people. Michalis was an idiot with a death wish and the personality of a particularly angry wet sock, but Navarre had found himself actually liking the man, just a little, after their last few run-ins. There was a real heroism to almost getting killed for a woman to mourn properly.

And Michalis had asked Navarre to do this, even if he was the only person there at the time who could. But it still seemed a sign of esteem, and if nothing else, Michalis of Macdeon could out-fight probably half of the continent or more in combat. If he had seen Navarre as being a trustworthy person to carry his precious cargo, that was pretty high praise.

(And also, although Navarre would be hard-pressed to admit it where anybody, especially Phina, could hear, Michalis did look good with a beard.)

“Yes,” Nina said at last, wiping her eyes. “I can. That Pegasus is mine. I...thought it might be fitting, if I took up his lance for him. Since he’s gone.” She squared her shoulders. “Where is it?” Navarre tilted his head toward the door.

“Horse. Saddle.”

Nina got up and left, leaving him alone with Samuel, who leaned closer. “What?” The other man asked, staring after Nina. “What the hell is this? Why are you here? What’s this about Michalis?”

“Nina had him steal Gradivus from Grust,” Navarre said, his voice as low as possible, barely above a whisper. Samuel’s mouth fell open. Navarre, eyebrows up into his hairline, nodded. Samuel kept staring at him, trying to find words, and Navarre just let him, got comfortable until food was delivered. It was bland stuff, but he ate with gusto after racing to Altea. He needed his energy.

And he let Samuel talk. Listened as the other man explained that Nina had hired him as a companion as she tried to heard across the straits to Valentia. He listened to Samuel relate the stories of their journeys, only letting up when Nina came back in. Her eyes were red but she was composed, and she sat at her vacated seat, folding her hands together, staring at the wood of the table. For a time she said nothing at all, and then she hung her head slightly.

“You said Michalis is recuperating from his injuries?”

“Back at Marisha’s.” Nina seemed torn. She rubbed her chin, thinking.

“Take us with you. I wish to thank him in person for his deeds. I owe Michalis a great debt for what he has done for me.” Navarre didn’t care one way or another. He just shrugged. “I will make my decision about the further journey afterward. And pay you then.” She turned toward Samuel, and hissed, “ _Reduced_.”

 

 

They didn’t rush the way back. Navarre’s horse was too tired to, and he didn’t see any need to when either Michalis would be dead or not. If he died of infection or whatever before they got back, he died. That was way the fuck out of his hands. Still, he had almost missed traveling with Samuel, especially now he was dressed like himself, his black-dyed hair pulled out of his face. Nina was a surprisingly pleasant companion—she didn’t talk nearly as much as Samuel did, and she was thoughtful, quiet. Subdued, even.

It was being with her like this that reminded Navarre she’d lost two husbands—or near enough to be as such—in less than two years. And she had cared for Hardin, that had never been a doubt. As a dear, dear friend, but even that hadn’t been enough next to Gharnef. Navarre had always felt pity for her, used and abused by fate as she was. The world was cruel and heartless in the end. Everyone had lost in those wars.

Nina had just lost the most. Over, and over, and over again.

Phina met them at the edge of Marisha’s property. “I’ve been watching,” she said, squeezing Samuel in one of her brutal, back-popping hugs. He kept wheezing in her arms. “I figured you’d be back soon. Samuel, did you go around pretending to be Nav again?”

“It’s work,” Samuel managed, coughing as she let him go. “You look pretty.”

“Fuck off,” Phina told him, without heat. She smiled at Nina, and sketched a brief curtsy. “It’s good to see you, Your Majesty. Or uh, is that right for an Empress? I’ve never been any good at titles.”

“Just Nina,” Nina corrected, dismounting as her pegasus set down, brushing her skirts off. She gave a little _oof_ as Phina subjected her to the same bone-crushing hug, wheezing quietly. “It’s good to see you too,” she managed, coughing when Phina let her go. Phina looked over at her horse, and whistled when she saw what was sheathed on the saddle.

“Oh, so _that’s_ why they made Michalis into a pincushion! He’s lucky they didn’t put so many holes in him we could use him like a sieve.” Nina’s pale face paled even further.

“I didn’t realize it was that bad,” she whispered, hand pressed to her breast. “He’s not passed—“

“No, he’s fine. Pissed off and stuck in bed, but fine. And Marisha is worried his leg will never totally heal right, but it doesn’t matter. He rides Athena all the time anyway, so it’s not like he has to walk a ton or anything. Come on, the house is this way.” Navarre passed her, going with the ease of long practice toward Marisha’s house, listening to Phina’s voice filtering through the trees. She was talking Nina and Samuel’s ears off, explaining what had happened to Michalis, and he let her do that job. He didn’t want to have to talk that much.

He knocked on the door and stepped inside. Marisha was in her shift, sweeping the floor. “He’s in the back room,” she said to Navarre. “Who is Phina talking to?”

“Nyna and Samuel,” Navarre replied, slinging his Wo Dao against her counter and stalking to the back door. Marisha yelped at him. “Put your dress on.”

“The _Empress_?”

“Not any more.” Navarre nudged the door open to what Marisha called her _sick room_ , and found Michalis propped up in bed. He had a sheet pulled up to his waist, and was wearing only his shirt, his armor and cloak folded up and propped against a chair in the corner. His hair was even longer than Navarre had realized before, scattered around his back on the pillow.

Against the white cotton, Navarre could see how much grey was in it.

Michalis had to be almost forty. He’d never thought about that before. The world kept marching on.

Navarre shut the door behind him. Michalis stared at him, his eyes tired and his face haggard. His stubble had grown in to a proper beard during his convalescence, grey streaking his chin and cheeks. “You’re back,” he said, sighing, slumping. “Did she take it?”

“She’s here,” Navarre said. Michalis stared at him. “She wants to thank you in person for what you did.” Michalis clutched the sheets over his lap, gawping. “She’s with Phina and Marisha.”

“I’m not _decent!_ ”

“You can’t move.” Michalis was still clutching his sheets, reaching for his jacket on the chair. “Leave it,” Navarre snapped at him, piling his things on the floor and pulling the chair over to his bedside. He sat down in it, laced his hands over his lap, stared at the other man. Michalis stared back at him. He didn’t speak until he heard the front door open and close, and then he, very gently, leaned backwards on the legs of the chair until the back of it stuck under the door handle so the door couldn’t be opened. He felt someone try it. “I’m talking to him,” Navarre said. “I’ll open it as soon as we’re done.”

“Okiedokie!” Phina called. “Don’t take too long, loverboys.” Michalis flushed almost the same red as his hair, and Navarre glared at him more.

“What?” Michalis said at last. His indignation had bled back out of him, and he rubbed his forehead. “Here to tell me I’m a fool?”

“Why did you give it to me without telling me?” Navarre said instead. “If I had been caught, what do you think would have happened? Did you just assume I would be fine? I’m no Macedonian king, Michalis. If Grust got me they’d lop my head off in a heartbeat.” Navarre left the chair propped against the door and crossed to Michalis’ bed, leaned forward onto the sheets, boxed the other man in with his arms.

Michalis standing was taller, broader, than he was. But like this, Navarre dwarfed him, put him on the defense.

“What the _fuck_ were you thinking,” Navarre hissed. “I’m not your subject. I don’t owe you _anything._ You owe me a life debt, and you sent me running off across Archanea with _Gradivus_ to see _Empress Nyna_ without telling me shit. You’re lucky I came back at all, let alone that I came back not ready to fucking run you through. Although, let me tell you, when Nina’s done with you I’m considering it. I’m used to you being a selfish jackass, but this is shit on a whole new level.” He leaned forward until their noses were barely an inch apart. “ _Why_.”

Michalis stared at him. “You’re questioning me,” he began, and Navarre grabbed him by the collar, hauled him half an inch off the bed one-handed.

“Do not try and pull rank on me,” Navarre snarled. “You’re disowned and dethroned, Michalis. Maria will never let you back on the throne over her dead body and you _know_ it. Grust already has demands out for your life. Did you really fucking think this was just going to blow over? You can’t rely on your sisters to get you out of this one. I respect what you did for Nina, but she knows you were both _idiots_ for trying it. Why the fuck did you drag me in on this, Michalis?” They were both panting, adrenaline and fury and fear, maybe. “Or I swear on Naga’s name, the minute Nina leaves, I’ll tie you hand and foot and deliver you to Grust _myself_.” It was the most he'd talked in months, and it left him a little breathless. 

“I trust you,” Michalis said. “Caeda told me once you always protect women. Even if you don’t know them.”

“Correction: I protect people who can’t protect themselves. That just usually happens to be women.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Michalis whispered. “You never shirked anything during the wars, even when you were way out of your depth. You fought beside us even when you had no stake in things. I—“ Michalis was staring at his lips. “I knew if anybody could get it to Nyna, it would be you. Gradivus should be hers by right. It’s all she has of Camus.”

It had been a long, long time since Navarre had heard anybody say Camus’ name. Even Michalis spoke it like he was pained. And he was right, of course—Nyna had lost _everything_ in the Wars. Everything. Her husbands. Her country. Her home. Her lover. Her happiness. The life she was building now was one built on grief.

Giving her Gradivus was the least they could do.

Navarre growled, and let Michalis go after a minute longer. “We’re finishing this later,” he told Michalis. “Because—“

“No,” Michalis said, grabbing his shoulder, pulling him down. He was leaning up on his uninjured leg. “We’re finishing this now.”

He pulled Navarre down until they were on the same level, and kissed him. Michalis’ thin lips were cool against his mouth; his stubbled cheek rough against Navarre’s own smooth one. His hand against Navarre’s shoulder was warm, strong. He could feel the strength in the other man’s body. Navarre kissed him back, angry and hurt and furious at the sheer amount he had bottled up about dealing with this jackass. About being left in the dark. About carrying Gradivus through Grust, Gra, and Altea, without knowing what he bore. He bit Michalis’ lower lip until the other man opened his mouth, panted up against him, leaning as far up off of the sheets as he could go. His neck bared, strangely vulnerable.

Navarre let him go, and Michalis fell back to the pillows in dishabille. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. He got his composure back as Navarre opened the door, right as Nina was reaching out to knock. Navarre glanced at her, and gestured her inside.

“He’s all yours.”

 

 

When Michalis could ride again, which took longer than Marisha had initially thought it would (since the arrows had torn major ligaments and tendons) there wasn’t really so much a conversation about what would happen. As it was, one day they got ready to go and Michalis was with them. And so was Marisha. And so were Nina and Samuel.

“I’ve not travelled much,” Nina admitted, as they all saddled up. “Seeing Archanea as you do perhaps will give me something else to do.” She tightened her pegasus’ saddle as she spoke, Michalis loading his packs onto Athena’s back. “There’s a whole continent here that needs help. Following—I mean. Going to Valentia when there’s a world that needs help here seems like running away.”

“I don’t care,” Navarre said, because he didn’t give a shit. He had long since stopped caring what the people following him did. Whatever; it wasn’t his problem. He was going to go work no matter what. If he had tagalongs, he had tagalongs. Phina had stuck around, and now everyone else was, too.

Whatever. Maybe they could get more work with a more varied team.

“That means,” Phina said, as they started onto the road, Marisha riding in front of her, “That he likes you, and thinks you should stick around.” Navarre glared at her, but she ignored it. Michalis looked back at Navarre, and their eyes met.

“What about me?” Michalis asked.

Navarre stared at him, considering.

“You can go to hell,” he told Michalis, and spurred his horse on. Phina was cackling behind him, and he heard her crow,

“That means he _like_ likes you!”

 

 

That night, after the women split off to go bathe, Samuel passed out immediately and left Navarre and Michalis alone. They sat together beside the fire, Michalis’ bad leg stretched out in front of him. He’d tied his hair up in a bun at the nape of his neck, the knot larger than Navarre’s fist. At the edges of the clearing, Athena was contentedly crushing bones in counterpoint to the crackle of the fire.

For a long time, neither one of them spoke. Michalis sighed, scrubbed a hand over his beard. And then they went quiet again—nobody said anything. Michalis cleared his throat. Navarre stayed quiet. Michalis shifted. Still quiet. “Do you,” Michalis finally started, and stopped again. He ducked his head, and the firelight played off of the white and silver threads in his hair, growing in at his part, and the grey in his beard. “You’re hard to read.”

“I get that,” Navarre replied. That was it. He let Michalis work himself around to it, because that was, he had discovered, the best way to deal with anyone. If they were distressed, anguished, worn out, they would build their own castle of words and he could either agree or disagree. He was no great talker, and it was better to let everyone else do the work for him. That was why he stayed with Phina. (Or it had been, once upon a time, before she’d become something more like family.)

“You’re a handsome man,” Michalis settled on.

Navarre grunted. “Not a man,” he corrected. Michalis froze, and turned to stare at him, eyes narrowed.

“You’re called the Crimson Swords _man_.”

“I didn’t pick my epithet.”

“You’re not bathing with the women.”

“Not a woman, either.” Michalis was thinking so hard Navarre could almost hear him.

“So then, what—“

“I am a sword. I am a hand that wields a sword. That’s it. If that’s going to be a problem, you’re not going to be interested, go fuck Samuel instead. He looks enough like me it passes.” Michalis started sputtering. “Or is that not—“

“I don’t. I mean, I. Samuel is _not_ you.” Navarre stared at Michalis, as if to say _no shit_.

“Then what do you want?” Navarre asked. He raised his eyebrows. Michalis broke eye contact after a moment, looked back at the fire. “You’re forty. Act like it. Do you want to fuck me?”

“Yes?” Michalis asked, clearing his throat. “Yes,” he tried again. “If you want. That. I meant what I said before, Navarre. I trust you. You’re a deft hand with a sword, and kind. You protect people weaker than yourself. I appreciate that.” Probably because Michalis himself was awful at it.

Navarre got tired. He had been tired for a while. He set his sword aside beside him, turned, and took Michalis’ head in his hands, and dragged him over. Michalis came willingly, leaned over him, caught the back of his neck in one hand, dragged teeth over his lower lip. Navarre pulled him nearer, dug his nails into the side of Michalis’ neck, let his stubble scrape his chin. “I’ve never had sex with uh,” Michalis started, and Navarre bit him. Hard.

“Don’t say what you’ve never fucked until you find out what I even _have_ ,” he snapped.

“Is it a sword?” Michalis asked, and there was a hint of humor in his voice.

“A _literal_ one, if you keep this shit up.”

 

 

The next morning, Phina saw Michalis crawl out of Navarre’s bedroll and practically fell over howling with laughter until Navarre flashed her a rude gesture. “Bet you pulled the stick out of _his_ ass,” she teased, and Michalis flushed, hauling his breeches back up as he went to go find a tree to piss behind.

“Nice ass!” Nina called after him, and his flushed crawled up his ears.

“I don’t want my Empress looking at my ass!” He shouted back. “Please!”

Navarre, still warm and comfortable, folded his hands behind his head and grinned one of his rare smiles, looking around as his companions started to wake up. Nina was in her shift and breeches, combing knots out of her short hair, Gradivus beside where she’d slept. Samuel was soaking wet after dunking his head in the nearby river. Marisha, in only her breastband, was yawning and stirring the cookpot while Phina stretched to warm up, her loincloth tied tight to stay on, shirtless. She wiggled her ass at him when she caught his eye, and he flipped her off again.

“What are you thinking about over there?” She asked, stretching as she started her morning routine, adjusting her loincloth so her dick didn’t spill out and give anyone an eyefull. “You’re grinning.”

“I wouldn’t tell you even if I cared enough to,” Navarre replied, and caught the rock she flung at his head. But what he was thinking, as Michalis came back, washing his hands with his canteen and rooting around in their bedroll to find his shirt, as Navarre crawled out and went to rinse his mouth out, as the sounds of breaking camp clattered in the dawn light, what he was _thinking_ was—

“At least you aren’t a terrible mercenary band,” he said, and the whole camp stared at him, blinking.

Samuel gawped. “Are you sure you fucked him? Because it sounds more like you gave him a head injury.”

Navarre took the rock Phina had chucked at him and flung it at Samuel’s head. His reactions weren’t as quick as Navarre’s own, and he failed to grab it. It struck him on the top of the head, and he yelped in pain, rubbing the spot.

“Don’t test me,” Navarre warned him, “Or I’ll dump you at the next town.”

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr/twitter @jonphaedrus
> 
> someone: isnt that the empress nyna  
> someone: oh god  
> someone: she has the lance gradivus  
> someone: oh god, shes coming at me  
> someone: oh god why does the empress nyna former bishop have a fucKING LANCE


End file.
